Chapter Text
The one who had to be the one to wake up to the two most intelligent people of the Kingdom of Science looking like they were seconds away from withering to dust and basically begging for food was Kohaku. After waking up, she just sat there for a couple of seconds, completely baffled, before managing to put together the puzzle pieces. She first helped the men to their huts, after that she snuck back outside to prepare some food for them. Gen would be staying in the hut that was reserved for sick people as even though whatever he had caught probably wasn’t contagious, that hut had an already installed stove to heat it up. Most of the other huts didn’t have the stoves installed yet as nights were only starting to get colder. Senku had gone back to their usual hut that Gen and Senku shared most of the nights.
Gen lit the fire under the stove while waiting for Kohaku, immediately soaking up the warmth even as he was already under a blanket. Soon enough Kohaku returned with grilled fish and some cut up fruit that Gen gratefully accepted. While he was eating, she awkwardly touched his forehead to check for his fever, undoubtedly a request from Senku. It didn’t seem it had gone down much from Kohaku’s frown and the way Gen was feeling.
Finishing his meal and laying down with a sign, Gen didn’t find it in himself to stay awake for any longer. Kohaku would be taking care of the fire during the night so that it wouldn’t go out, Gen had no doubt about that. Even though she had been the one most suspicious of Gen for a long time after he joined the Kingdom, Gen considered her now a good ally, maybe even a friend. She was a hard worker and very loyal to those she cared about and Gen was happy to have her on their side. Senku had done a good job at securing her as one of his closest allies, Gen thinks as he loses grip of his consciousness and drifts to sleep.
Gen sleeps for a full fifteen hours straight before waking up yet he barely felt better the next day. I guess pushing himself to hike for hours while already working up a fever had its cost. He had heard that even Senku had slept for a full ten hours, which was very unusual for the scientist who slept mostly six hours per night. Despite his injured leg, Senku was already running around the village with a slight limb in his steps the day after they’d returned.
Chrome had brought him dinner after he had noticed the mentalist finally awake. As of now, Gen only seemed to have his fever and coughs, so the best way for him to heal was to rest up and he definitely didn’t have any objections to that with the way he was feeling. Just simply sitting up to eat was enough to make his head spin with nausea.
Senku paid him a visit in the afternoon after apparently taking care of all the things he had missed on their little adventure.
“How are you feeling, mentalist?” Senku announced himself when he stepped into the hut. Gen had been laying down and trying to resist the urge to shove his hands inside the fire for warmth. He knew it was just the fever doing its things, but he couldn’t help but shake even under the thick blanket he had. Gen turned to face the scientist with a sniff from his nose.
“Gross. Who would’ve thought that hiking multiple kilometers at night while in a simple top would result in one feeling so bad,” Gen replied sarcastically while Senku sat himself next to his bed. After quickly checking his temperature, Senku turned to the things he had settled on the ground. He had brought a bucket full of water and a towel with him that he was now squeezing most of the water out and folding it before placing it on Gen’s forehead. A shiver made its way through Gen’s body at the chilly contact.
“Cold,” Gen complained, but the towel was at least helping to bring his headache down. Senku scoffed, pushing air out of his nose forcefully.
“Yeah well, it's going to help to bring your fever down. You’ve been keeping up quite the fever for a while now and it's going to get dangerous if it keeps going up,” Senku said while shuffling through his bags, pulling out a clay bottle and a spoon. Pouring out the contents of the bottle onto the spoon, Gen noticed it to be honey.
“For your throat,” Senku felt the need to explain before bringing the spoon to Gen’s lips. Swallowing it definitely helped his throat to feel less hoarse, but Gen felt slightly embarrassed to be taken care of like a little kid so he needed to take it out a bit.
“What, are you my daddy now?” Gen teases while giving Senku a devious smirk. The absolute disgust that takes over Senku’s face is a sight to see.
“Don’t ever say anything like that again or I will leave you to the lions.” Gen isn’t able to hold his laughter back anymore and his giggles come out hoarse through his sore throat. It isn’t helping to make him feel better but Gen doesn't care right now, as just the image of Senku's face is making him snicker. The emotion on Senku's face has now faded into something between irritation and trying to hold his own laughter back, as the scientist doesn’t want to give way to the mentalist antics.
“You wouldn’t do that to poor ol’ me, would you now Senku-chan~?” Gen says theatrically despite his throat’s protests.
“If you keep this act up I doubt I would even feel sorry for you,” Senku answers with a sigh, massaging the bridge of his nose with his fingers.
“So old-cay…”
Gen’s fingers betray him before he can realize it himself. His hand rises on its own to lift up the towel on his head that started sliding off when he was laughing, only to stop centimeters away from his face, hovering in place.
Gen had been trying hard to ignore the uncomfortable itchiness across his body, the feeling of dirtiness and images of germs crawling around on his skin. But he couldn’t now bring himself to touch his face, no matter how hard he was trying to force the hand to move. He hadn’t bathed yet after coming back, and the sweat from walking and the fever was piling on his body.
His hand started to shake but this time not from the coldness. With a deep breath, Gen let his lifted arm back down, giving up on fixing the towel and leaving it sideways on his face. He didn’t want to look at Senku, knowing he most likely understood what was going on and instead Gen settled on staring at the wall across him.
He felt Senku’s cool fingers brush against his forehead as he lifted the towel up for him. Without saying a word, Senku shuffled through his bags once again, pulling out another, smaller towel. Dipping it in the bucket and wringing out most of the water, Senku carefully reaches out with his other hand to reach for Gen’s. Gen doesn't pull away when Senku lifts his arm and brings it closer to himself, nor does he when the cold towel makes contact with his skin, slowly starting to rub away all the dirt and sweat gathered from the past days.
Senku is very thorough with his washing, dipping the towel multiple times over in the water to keep it damp and one by one washing even the spaces between his fingers. The rhythmic rubbing of the towel and the clean coolness of the water slowly stop his hand from shaking and let his heart relax from its race against irrational fears. Daring to finally sneak a look at the other, Gen glances sideways at Senku.
The scientist looks oddly calm, his red eyes focused softly on the hand in front of him. Gen, unable to turn his eyes away now that he has looked, continues watching in shock of the other’s care of his hand, a heat rising on his face. Senku finally feels his gaze on him, looking up to meet the mentalist’s eyes. A couple of seconds pass of just them looking at each other, before a light blush appears on Senku’s cheeks and he turns his head away, letting Gen's hand away from his grip.
“I’ll um… I’ll let Chrome or Kohaku know to bring you some warm water to wash yourself.” Senku mumbles as he gets up and picks up the bucket from the ground, carrying it away as he walks away out of the hut.
Gen waits a couple of seconds in silence, listening to Senku's footsteps disappearing into the distance before he allows himself to bring his newly washed hand to his face, covering his eyes with it. He lets out a long, shaky breath as the heat rises more on his cheeks.
Maybe there was some hope for him after all.
*********
There is a scent of sweetness in the warm summer breeze. Ryusui is walking in front, carrying the fruitbasket and humming a tune loudly to himself. Senku doesn’t recognize the song but that isn’t surprising. After all, he hadn’t spent a lot of his time in the old world listening to music, focused instead on his science projects. Every now and then Byakuya would blast popular pop songs from the television, most of them being Lillian’s songs. And while Senku would usually yell at him to lower the volume as it interrupted his studying, he had still memorized most of Byakuya’s favorite songs from memory.
Senku was broken out of his memories when Gen’s voice rose above the humming. “That was a popular tune amongst sailors back in the day, if I recall correctly?” Gen was walking in front of the scientist, leaving Senku to be the last on the line from the trio that had set out to gather some fruits. All three of them had time to kill, so they had decided to help out Francois to prepare all the bread needed for their voyage.
Gen had a certain swing to his walk, he always did, but today it seemed stronger than usual. I guess that meant that the mentalist was in a good mood. Gen had tilted his head to the side as he had asked his question, his white bangs bouncing with the weight of his steps. He somehow always manages to keep his hair silky even in this stone world. That had to be some kind of a magic trick or maybe there was just a genetic unfairness to it.
Ryusui threw his head over his shoulder to answer. “Ha! It was indeed. I’m surprised you recognized it.” Gen simply shrugs his shoulders.
“I happened to come across it once and the tune is very easy to recognize even after hearing it only a couple of times. That is probably why it was so popular in those circles,” Gen pondered. The path cleared to an opening as they approached a bridge to go over a river. The ‘bridge’ was actually stupidly simple, just some planks put on top of stones to form a dry path across. It wasn’t stable by any means, but the river was low at this part so it wasn’t really a risk for safety. There were more urgent matters as of right now with their ship building but maybe once they’d have some spare manpower they could construct a proper bridge here.
“Yes, well there were a lot of different ones but-” Ryusui cut his own sentence off as his eyes caught a glimpse of bright yellow against the green forest. Ukyo was walking towards the village on the other side of the river with his back towards them but with his hearing, he had probably already known them coming from miles away.
“Ukyo!” Ryusui exclaims louder than necessary, sprinting across the bridge and appearing beside the sonar operator only seconds later. Ukyo offers him a small smile as a greeting but doesn’t stop to chat and together with Ryusui dragging behind him, they continue walking down the path, leaving Senku and Gen in the dust on the other side of the river. Ryusui’s loud voice carries over as he continues pestering the person they had stumbled across.
Gen sighs, glancing at where the two had disappeared into the forest before making his way to the bridge.
“Poor Ukyo-chan must be tired from mapping all day. How long do you think it’ll take for Ryusui-chan to pick up the hint and leave the man to rest?”
Senku snickers at that. “I think that’ll take too long and by that time Ukyo will already have murdered him.” Gen huffs as he steps foot on the bridge, searching for his balance for a second before continuing. Senku follows close behind, even if the bridge wasn’t stable, the planks were strong enough to hold the two of them at once.
“You’re probably right. Hopefully somebody in the village will come to the rescue, otherwise we’ll be dealing with an irritated Ukyo-chan at least till tomorrow.”
Senku falls back into his thoughts as their footsteps continue tapping on the plank. There was a lot of work to do, but as of right now everybody had a task to complete, so no new projects to start. Senku had found himself with a bit of free time, it had been a long time since that had happened. Ever since the Stone wars had started after the winter, Senku had been busy as hell with trying to manage both the village and the empire in different locations. Maybe after getting back to the village he could find Chrome to bounce ideas off of for some chill chatting.
Senku didn’t see the slight turn the bridge took, simply continuing straight forward, lost in his thoughts. This led to his foot slipping as he stepped too close to the edge of the plank and in his panic Senku’s hands shot up, grabbing something resembling fabric to balance himself. Whatever he had grabbed though gave out under his weight with almost zero resistance, and that's how Senku now found himself falling into the river with his back first. Somewhere from the back of his mind he was able to hear and recognize a high pitched shriek coming from nearby before his body hit the water and the river bed, the water being as shallow as it could be and barely softening the fall at all.
Senku lifted himself to sit in the river, hissing in pain and rubbing his backside that had taken most of the fall. He should stop spacing out while walking on narrow bridges. Then a thought occurred to him: what had that scream been about? Senku was ten billion percent sure it hadn’t been him and after lifting his gaze, he was surprised to find a figure in the river with him.
Gen was sitting stunned in the water next to him, his clothes just as drenched as Senku’s. His gaze was staring blackly at the watercurrents he was now in, as if not comprehending how he had ended up there. The realization hit Senku suddenly. Of course the only thing for him to grap, the fabric he had felt under his fingers, had been Gen himself and now he had dragged the mentalist into the river too because of his own stupid mistake.
“Shit Gen, are you okay? Didn’t mean to drag you down as well," Senku was able to finally find his voice after the shock, studying the other’s face for any signs of pain, feeling guilty for making him fall too.
Gen simply blinks his eyes for a few seconds before meeting the scientist's eyes, Senku's face frowned in worry. Just as Senku was sure Gen would lash out at him for dragging the other down into the river, Gen’s mouth started to twitch.
Senku could only look confused as the other burst out laughing. “There’s…. no way…” Gen was uttering the words between his giggles, the mentalist full on amid his odd laughing fit and grabbing his tummy. “You’re unbelievable, Senku-chan.”
There was something about the scene that was making Senku’s heart race and his face heat up. The whole scenario wasn’t making any sense, but seeing Gen laughing like this, letting his true feelings show instead of just the mask most of the time plastered on his face, was making his heart jump a couple of beats.
Gen slowly settled, his laughs dying out. Even if Senku didn’t understand what the other was finding so hilarious (maybe he had hit his head during the fall), there was still a smirk playing on his own lips. Gen was finally able to compose himself enough, wiping water away from his face with his wet sleeve. Senku wasn’t sure how much it was helping.
“This is the third time you’ve made me fall into a river. I’d tell you to not make this a habit, but I'm afraid it’s too late for that,” Gen explains after a beat, a glimmer playing in his eyes as he squints at Senku.
Oh. He remembers now, he had done that.
Unable to contain his own laugh now, Senku lets out a snicker. “That was you who screamed? Sounded like a little girl.”
“That’s not air-fay, Senku-chan! I’d like to see you not scream as you get ambushed from behind to fall into a river.” Gen pouts, crossing his arms. “You own me a cola for this.”
“I guess I do. Though if you’d have a bit more muscle, you could’ve stopped us from falling.”
Senku doesn’t expect the splash of water that hits his face. He has to wipe his eyes before being able to see the mentalist staring daggers at him.
“Don’t forget who was the first one to slip and fall, Senku-chan~”
Right then and there, Senku suddenly got the strangest urge to reach forward to grab the mentalist and close the distance between them. He was unable to do anything else than just stare at the other’s grey eyes, overwhelmed by this sudden feeling. Senku had always found Gen’s eyes intriguing: he knew they were grey, but under certain lighting they looked blue, sometimes even deep purple. Right now they were reflecting the river shimmering in the sunlight, looking more dark blue than grey. Senku’s throat was dry, which was odd because he could’ve sworn he just drank some water not long ago.
Before Gen was able to comment on the lack of comeback from Senku, they heard a yell from the other side of the river.
“Senku! Gen! You guys okay? Ukyo heard you two fall and told me to come check up on you,” Ryusui’s voice carried well over the distance.
“I think this was a bit of an extreme solution from you to rescue Ukyo-chan,” Gen mumbles under his breath, loud enough for Senku to hear but not so that Ryusui outside of the river could. Senku has to try his best to stay composed as Ryusui is still waiting worried for their answer.
“Yeah we’re okay. Just a little fumble, that’s all,” Senku yells back. Gen pushes himself up to stand, his wet clothes clearly weighting him down. He offers Senku a hand and Senku takes it gratefully while standing up too with a grunt.
Turning to face Ryusui, the worry on his face has been replaced with a grin that both Gen and Senku knew way too well, causing them to roll their eyes collectively.
“Have I ever told you two that seeing you with your hair wet makes you even more desirable? I want you both!” Ryusui snaps his fingers, not hiding the way he was eyeing them up. Senku was able to see a visible shiver run up Gen’s back before the mentalist collects himself, taking a step forward.
“You desire me? I’m very taken, Ryusui-chan. How about I repay you with a nice, tight hug?” Gen's voice is filled with malice as he opens his arms beside himself. For a few hopeful seconds, Ryusui’s eyes are filled with bliss before a look of horror settles in instead on his face. Gen’s sleeves are dripping with water, no doubt also soaking the sailor wet if he were to embrace the mentalist.
“Uh… How about we get back to the village and you can figure out how to repay me there after drying yourself? Wouldn’t want you to catch a cold.” Ryusui was slowly backing away as Gen was closing in on him walking towards the shore, feet dragging in the water.
“But Ryusui-chan! You said I look better with my hair wet. So surely you’d want to hug me now?” Gen’s slow pace towards Ryusui was horrifyingly steady and persistent, his arms still spread open. The sailor seemed to decide to make his escape before it was too late, turning his back against them and running off the path to the village.
“Going to catch up with Ukyo!” He yells back at them before disappearing into the forest with haste. Senku is watching from where he was still standing in the river as Gen’s shoulders start to shake with his giggles.
It was a warm day, maybe warmest this year yet. The sun was shining so bright from the clear sky that Senku had to squint his eyes to be able to handle the light. Today it felt like the rays were specifically meant just for him, heating him up from the inside like he was a dry leaf under a magnifying lens being lit on fire. Senku found himself liking the warmth of the flame despite his past belief that it would burn him.
“You’re impossible, mentalist.”
Gen turns around to face him with a mischievous grin, sticking his tongue out in response.
Senku loves learning about new things. He lives off the sensation of finding out something new and seeing his theories come to life.
Recently he has made a surprising hypothesis that he might be in love with Gen.
And he couldn’t be more excited about learning something new.